A team from the UN nuclear watchdog inspected Iran's newly disclosed uranium enrichment site Sunday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. “The inspectors who arrived in Iran Sunday visited the facility in central Iran. They are expected to visit the site again,” Mehr said, without giving a source. The inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Iran early Sunday to examine a nuclear site that has heightened Western fears of a covert program to develop atomic bombs, an accusation Tehran rejects. Iran revealed the existence of its second enrichment plant, under construction 160 km (100 miles) south of Tehran, in September, fanning Western suspicions over its nuclear ambitions. The West fears Iran wants to use its nuclear program to build atomic weapons. Iran insists it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity. Inspection of the plant, being built inside a mountain near the Shiite holy city of Qom, comes as US President Barack Obama garnered support from France and Russia for a separate UN-brokered deal to end the crisis over Tehran's atomic program. Iran has already been enriching uranium - the most controversial aspect of its nuclear project - for several years at another plant in the central city of Natanz, in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions. Enriched uranium produces fuel for civilian reactors, but in highly extended form can also make the fissile core of an atomic bomb. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has already criticized Iran for what he said was its late disclosure of the Qom facility's existence. - Agencies saying such construction must be revealed on the day it begins. Iran, which informed the agency about a year after building began, said its disclosure obligation only began 180 days before it placed any nuclear material inside the facility. Mohammad Kosari, deputy head of parliament's committee on national security and foreign policy, said the inspectors would visit only the Qom plant. “If they act within the framework of the law and the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) we have no problem, but if they want to go beyond that it is up to us to decide,” he said, indicating that any additional inspection requests would have to be cleared by Tehran. On Saturday, Mehr news agency, quoting an unnamed Vienna-based official, said the IAEA inspectors would “compare the information given by Iran (about the Qom plant) with the facility during their three-day visit.” Lawmaker Hossein Ebrahimi said the IAEA inspection “shows that Iranian nuclear activities are peaceful and transparent.” Officials say that at the Qom plant they intend to install new generation centrifuges - the devices which enrich uranium at supersonic speed. On Sunday criticism continued inside Iran to the deal, which was originally proposed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself. Abolfazl Zohrevand, a senior Iranian atomic expert and diplomat, said Western powers want to ship the bulk of Iran's LEU abroad so it would have to ultimately “suspend” its uranium enrichment drive. Lawmaker Heshmatollah Felahatpishe said Tehran “must not participate in this dangerous game” with the West, the official IRNA news agency reported.
